University of Osaka
Also known as Ōsaka daigaku, UOsaka, Osaka University, Handai, The University of Osaka
higher education institution in Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Key facts
- Motto
- 地域に生き世界に伸びる
- Motto in english
- Live Locally, Grow Globally
- Type
- Public (National)
- Established
- Kaitokudo founded 1724; Osaka Imperial University established 1931
- Budget
- 186.718 billion yen (2023)
- President
- Shojiro Nishio
- Academic staff
- 3,357
- Administrative staff
- 3,672
- Students
- 23,226
- Undergraduates
- 15,075
- Postgraduates
- 8,151
- Doctoral students
- 3,374
- Other students
~17 min read
Article
The University of Osaka (大阪大学, Ōsaka daigaku), abbreviated as UOsaka or Handai (阪大), is a national research university in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The university traces its roots back to Edo-era institutions Tekijuku (1838) and Kaitokudo (1724), and was officially established in 1931 as the sixth of the Imperial Universities in Japan, with two faculties: science and medicine. Following the post-war educational reform, it merged with three pre-war higher schools, reorganizing as a comprehensive university with five faculties: science, medicine, letters, law and economics, and engineering. After the merger with Osaka University of Foreign Studies in 2007, UOsaka became the largest national university in Japan by undergraduate enrollment. The official name of the university in English has been changed from "Osaka University" to "The University of Osaka (UOsaka)" as of April 2025.
UOsaka is one of the most productive research institutions in Japan. Numerous prominent scholars and scientists have attended or worked at UOsaka, such as Nobel Laureate in Physics Hideki Yukawa, Nobel Laureate in Medicine Shimon Sakaguchi, manga artist Osamu Tezuka, Lasker Award winner Hidesaburō Hanafusa, author Ryōtarō Shiba.